Moustaches: disgusting?

[YorkNecromancer]

To clarify, while I hate all facial hair - personally regarding it as aesthetically despicable in every way - this poll is purely about moustaches - facial hair on the upper lip alone, bereft of either chinstrap or other beardly accoutrements.

Are moustaches despicable in the modern world? Not, like, if you're an Edwardian gentleman in the 1920's in a straw boater and you've got a dapper little pencil moustache because it's the 1920s. Or if you're some cowboy in the 1800's or a gay man in the 1970s, where you know, it's the law that you've got to be rocking a big 'tashe if you want to be taken seriously. No, I mean, right now, 2016. Because every time I see a man with a moustache, I can't help but recoil a little at the sight of it. And I'm fully aware of men like Freddie Mercury, who just have the right face for one and look weird without it.

So, this poll is talking about the soup-strainer as a genuine fashion statement. Especially on younger men, where they're growing some foul sort of curly thing that's meant to be charming and quanit but just makes them look like an absolute douchenozzle.

http://thegeeksters.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/mustache-3.jpg

^ This kind of horror is what I mean.

Where do you stand on moustaches?

[Kirsten]

beards horrify me more than moustaches as they tend to be less tidy

[Mr Mystery]

The moustache on it's own looks daft, and has thus been adopted by Hipsters.

It is therefore Satan's own bum hair by default.

[YorkNecromancer]

beards horrify me more than moustaches as they tend to be less tidy

Oh, I don't get me wrong, I hate beards too. But GW seem really determined to make moustaches a thing and it's like STOP IT GAMES WORKSHOP. STOP THIS NONSENSE. MOUSTACHES ARE DISGUSTING. IF MY IMPERIAL GUARD MUST ALL BE MEN, CAN THEY AT LEAST - AT LEAST - NOT BE HIPSTERS AT THE SAME TIME?

'Oh, but we're evoking the Napoleonic era of Sharpe and - '

STOP THAT. 'SHARPE' IS COOL, YES, BUT NOT FOR THE MOUSTACHES. YOU HAVE FOCUSED ON THE WRONG THING. STOP THIS MADNESS IMMEDIATELY.

I think the Knight Scion's absurd facial hair was breaking point for me.

http://cdn.bols.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/99550108142_KnightScionStanding02.jpg

Look at him. I mean, great armour, great pose, great detail... But what an abject douche.

[Kirsten]

I went to uni with that guy, he was a total douche.

[Mr Mystery]

Should've stolen his Knight.

Then you could've had a Throne Kirstenanicus.

[Kirsten]

he wasn't cool enough to have a knight

[eldargal]

Some men can pull off a moustache (figuratively speaking). My father has a rather nice handlebar moustache, my brothers sometimes grow theirs but then they look like something out of Monty Python.

[Kirsten]

I like a handlebar moustache. I had a history teacher at school with a magnificent one, he had the look and personality to pull it off.

[YorkNecromancer]

Some men can pull off a moustache (figuratively speaking).

As I said in the initial post, outliers like Freddie Mercury don't count.

And man, every time I see that douche in the black and white photo, I feel worse. It's like: he has to know. He can't not know that he looks like just the most hateful douche... Can he?

[Erik Setzer]

If it works, I support it. If it doesn't... don't do it. I'm not sure I'd use the word "disgusting" but some people do end up looking like a '70s porn actor or something.

[odinsgrandson]

Hey, but if you can pull it off, it can really work.

The Indian film "Jodha Akbar" has the sexiest sword fight ever filmed in it- all the while, the leading man is sporting a 'stache.

17446

[grimmas]

I don't know about anyone else but I'm feeling a little disappointed we didn't 1000 words on why the growth of facial hair is an indication of the imminent formation of an oppressive system of government.

Where's Yorknecromancer and what have you done with him?? 😉

[YorkNecromancer]

The last, I don't know, maybe six months have been SUPER depressing on the forums here, so I've mostly been following my motto, and only commenting when I feel like I have something worthwhile to contribute, (or more often, when I have the strength to bother with an argument, which is only very infrequently these days. People can agree with me or not; I'm honestly too old to care any more. Especially when my TL;DR postings are just more of an intellectual exercise for me personally more than anything else: 'can I think of something interesting, and then write an article about it that I'd like to read?' That's literally the only reason I write them. I'm doing it for myself. Well, apart from that one Tau blog I did for JewelFox. And the Ork one for Psychosplodge.)

And I mean, they're heavily political because... Well, I don't actually think they are. I think I'm just very left-wing politically, and many (if not most) people on BoLS are right-wing, and I think you only really notice politics when it's not your own. Otherwise, you kind of drift through life assuming that everyone holds the same opinions as you. When that gets challenged, it really hurts, because of course it does.

Hence why I seem to get everyone's back up.

I suppose the thing is, from my point of view, by nature, everything is essentially a political decision to some degree, and always when art is involved. When everything's going our way and is set up to privilege us, we assume it isn't. For better or worse, moustaches have become a kind of a personal bete noire for that exact reason: GW produce heads with nearly seventy different variants of facial hair... But not one female head. Or one explicitly Black male head.

That's a relatively trivial political decision, but it's still a political one. It just doesn't look like one to those people who get the benefit of that.

It is also Some Serious Bullsh!t.

I don't know, I've just been very quiet because the responses got too nasty, too personal, and just exacerbated my depression to a horrible degree. So yeah, I've just tended to comment on stuff where I feel like it's worth commenting. Otherwise, you know, aut tace aut loquere meliora silentio.

The only reason I started this thread is because I've painted up one of the FW Knight Scions and the repulsiveness of his hipster 'tasche was just too much to leave unremarked upon. Plus I hoped it might get some laughs.

[Erik Setzer]

GW produce heads with nearly seventy different variants of facial hair... But not one female head. Or one explicitly Black male head.

I can agree on finding that annoying. I actually like diversity in my models. Heck, I like diversity in any kind of gaming. In video games I'll make a woman (or a non-white) person not because I want to stare at their *** (especially not in first-person games), but because it's interesting to have a protagonist who isn't a white male.

Sorry to hear about the depression. I totally understand that point, and I know I'm disagreeable at times and would hate to add to someone else's depression. Don't think I'm qualified to give advice... When I'm feeling much of anything (haven't been lately, which might be cause for concern), I tend to just flip the depression to anger and take it out on a video game which helps calm me. Probably not a terribly great idea, but, well... I still have a Facebook account that I occasionally check which is only people still involved in politics. And being neither right nor left earns you a good bit of scorn (but it's kind of a point of pride now that I can piss off people on both extremes).

Party Hard is on Humble Bundle for $8 (with some other stuff). Maybe that'll help you cheer up. Just imagine that instead of a party, it's a room full of forum-goers. I give you express permission to imagine sneaking up and stabbing me and dumping my body in a bin if it helps you feel better.:)

[Mr Mystery]

On the subject of explicitly ethnic heads, I'm not sure how easy that is to do without making it an incredibly racist stereotype, thus negating entirely the good intentions.

I'd say most manage to be quite ethnically neutral.

[YorkNecromancer]

I've heard that argument before, and from my point of view, it's simply not good enough.

Worrying that the solution to a problem may cause further problems is definitely a necessary step, but it's unacceptable for those worries to then prevent a solution actually being found. The worries need to be overcome; it's not impossible.

The bare Sternguard heads are recognisably characters from the 'Space Marine' game. The quality of the sculpting is there. All GW needs to do - assuming they're genuinely worried - is to hire some Black life models, then have pictures of the men next to the heads that are based on them. They could even brag about the realistic quality.

http://cdn2-www.wrestlezone.com/assets/uploads/2011/04/file_166989_0_BOOKERT-MANIA-WEEKEND1.jpg
http://www.cinemablend.com/images/gallery/s8756/tna_impact_12023950275826.jpg
http://www.wrestlingfigs.com/images/dlx6_booker.jpg

Seriously, if a wrestling company like WWE - one with a history of actual, overt racism, unlike GW's simple lack of thought - can do it and get it right, what's GW's excuse?

[Mr Mystery]

And then we hit capitalism....is there sufficient demand in the market place to justify that cost?

Upside is that anyone who objects to having non-whites represented in miniature form is almost certainly a customer you wouldn't want in the first place.

However, please don't discount that we're currently in a period of change for GW. Not only have we seen inclusive marketing, but we've also seen diverse paint jobs in Age of Sigmar.

http://www.waylandgames.co.uk/34987-thickbox_default/khorne-bloodbound-bloodreavers.jpg

And I wouldn't say any of them turned out, well, a bit Al Jolson.

Is it enough? Not really, no. But it's a start. Who knows what we'll see in the future? Certainly Age of Sigmar has opened it all up. Before, Empire were Empire, and thus positively Teutonic and European. But now that 'limitation' is removed.

Cadians and in particular Catachans are definitely due a resculpt in 40k as well.

In short? GW at least appear to be in the midst of getting with the now, so it's not really fair to only judge them on their lacklustre past.

EDIT

Be fair Yorkie. That scale of figure doesn't require the same exaggeration as 28mm, and it's that very exaggeration that stands to cause serious (and entirely justified) offence.

[YorkNecromancer]

http://www.waylandgames.co.uk/34987-thickbox_default/khorne-bloodbound-bloodreavers.jpg

And I wouldn't say any of them turned out, well, a bit Al Jolson.

Is it enough? Not really, no. But it's a start.

Ummm....

Okay, so I was really happy when I first saw non-Caucasian skin tones in AoS. I was like 'Yes! Finally! We're moving forwards, and I don't have to feel so embarrassed about how backwards my favourite hobby is ALL THE TIME.'

Then I read the background fluff and nearly put my head through the desk.

Because these guys are the ONLY official GW non-Caucasian humans in all of their game lines... And they're literal cannibal savages. Who worship a pagan god that demands blood sacrifice.

I mean, you play a lot of GW, and you're like 'Oh sure, Khorne, yeah, no that's just a Chaos thing'. But you take the step back, and please, PLEASE tell me you see that it's obviously and immediately problematic that the only Black figures in the whole of the Warhammer universe are cannibal savages.

And that's before we even get into the whole horribly tone-deaf bullsh!t of how they have all those manacles for enslaving the people they're going to eat. Even typing it, I can feel myself cringing inside at the thought of explaining this crap to anyone who's never heard of GW before. ('Oh, Black people? Yeah, the only Black people in-universe are cannibal savages who enslave people'.) I mean, they're lovely models, and Khorne is an interesting Chaos god and all, but DAMN this has been poorly, poorly thought-out.

I mean, that really is some witless, double-O stoopid fluff-writing right there.

I mean, yeah sure, great that we're seeing some non-Caucasian skin tones. But come on; it's not like they're Space Marine captains or something, is it? Even the one chapter of Astartes that was canonically black got changed so that they're 'demonically black'. I mean, I love 40K, you know I do... but GWs handling of race is tone-deaf at best, and borderline outright racist at worst.

And just to be clear, I don't think any of it's deliberate. I don't think they sat down and thought 'Right: how can we best offend people?' As always with GW, I think it's just that they don't think. About anything really, other than the most superficial 'Will it make a 13 year old white boy like I used to be go 'cool'?'

I think they're not overt racists, just f**king thoughtless idiots.



EDIT

Be fair Yorkie. That scale of figure doesn't require the same exaggeration as 28mm, and it's that very exaggeration that stands to cause serious (and entirely justified) offence.

I am being fair. I believe in GW. I believe they produce some of the best models I've ever seen, and that the quality only gets better year on year. Compare 'Black Reach' to 'Dark Vengeance' to 'Calth'; the model quality only goes up. I believe in Forge World; their stuff IS the best I've ever seen. Literally no-one does it better.

Yes, it's a risk.

But so was Finn in 'The Force Awakens' (a Black stormtrooper? Who's also inadvertently a little bit gay for Poe? Heresy!) . So was 'Rey' (a woman? Saving herself and being the actual hero for once? Heresy!).

They were both massive risks - if TFA had failed, they would have been what was blamed. But they worked. They just worked.

If you take your time and get it right, things just work.

I choose to believe in GW.

And are you seriously -SERIOUSLY - telling me, that we can have eighty kinds of luxuriant facial hair, down to the perfect lines in the fluff of them, but not one credible Black face?

I don't believe that's a remotely credible stance. Not based on the quality of GW's current output.

Especially when third party sellers (http://www.dragonforge.com/Painting%20service/for%20sale/conversion_parts.htm) were doing this a decade ago:

http://www.dragonforge.com/for%20sale%20images/dforge%20items%20for%20sale/supplies/acc/acc%20heads%20set%201%201.jpg

[Mr Mystery]

Only black people so far. Period of change is my whole point, and so far only gribbly Khorne worshippers have had new human kits since we first saw signs of said change.

If it's still the case in a couple of years, then fair enough.

And dude, should have lead with those heads. They're ace, and indeed an example of what can be done.

[grimmas]

The last, I don't know, maybe six months have been SUPER depressing on the forums here, so I've mostly been following my motto, and only commenting when I feel like I have something worthwhile to contribute, (or more often, when I have the strength to bother with an argument, which is only very infrequently these days. People can agree with me or not; I'm honestly too old to care any more. Especially when my TL;DR postings are just more of an intellectual exercise for me personally more than anything else: 'can I think of something interesting, and then write an article about it that I'd like to read?' That's literally the only reason I write them. I'm doing it for myself. Well, apart from that one Tau blog I did for JewelFox. And the Ork one for Psychosplodge.)

And I mean, they're heavily political because... Well, I don't actually think they are. I think I'm just very left-wing politically, and many (if not most) people on BoLS are right-wing, and I think you only really notice politics when it's not your own. Otherwise, you kind of drift through life assuming that everyone holds the same opinions as you. When that gets challenged, it really hurts, because of course it does.

Hence why I seem to get everyone's back up.

I suppose the thing is, from my point of view, by nature, everything is essentially a political decision to some degree, and always when art is involved. When everything's going our way and is set up to privilege us, we assume it isn't. For better or worse, moustaches have become a kind of a personal bete noire for that exact reason: GW produce heads with nearly seventy different variants of facial hair... But not one female head. Or one explicitly Black male head.

That's a relatively trivial political decision, but it's still a political one. It just doesn't look like one to those people who get the benefit of that.

It is also Some Serious Bullsh!t.

I don't know, I've just been very quiet because the responses got too nasty, too personal, and just exacerbated my depression to a horrible degree. So yeah, I've just tended to comment on stuff where I feel like it's worth commenting. Otherwise, you know, aut tace aut loquere meliora silentio.

The only reason I started this thread is because I've painted up one of the FW Knight Scions and the repulsiveness of his hipster 'tasche was just too much to leave unremarked upon. Plus I hoped it might get some laughs.

I'm sorry you feel that way.

I was having a little joke. Given the obvious levity in the OP it seemed appropriate.

I guess I was wrong. I shall leave it be.

[YorkNecromancer]

Only black people so far.And dude, should have lead with those heads. They're ace, and indeed an example of what can be done.

Yeah, sorry.

Only remembered them as my train of thought pulled in at the station.

I love the Wesley-Snipes-as-Blade one on the top left so very much.

[Mr Mystery]

It is rather nice :)

[Gotthammer]

Before, Empire were Empire, and thus positively Teutonic and European. But now that 'limitation' is removed.

Never stopped them having griffons and wizards tho, which when people accept that but not black people "because history" is deffo racist. And everyone in Europe being white is historically inaccurate anyway (http://medievalpoc.tumblr.com/post/71976076886/medieval-europeans-of-color-occupations-and-race).

[Mr Mystery]

Which is why I put it as 'limitation'

[YorkNecromancer]

Related article. (http://thenerdsofcolor.org/2016/02/11/going-medieval/)

It does make me wonder.

'Why are there Dragons of such immense size they violate all the laws of physics?'

'There just are. Accept it. You want a reason? Okay, fine, wizards and magic. Dragons are magic, and so they can violate the Square/Cube law.'

Why can't that reasoning apply to black people in fantasy?

'Why are there black people?'

'There just are. Accept it. You want a reason? Okay, fine, trade agreements, diplomacy, and simple immigration. They come from an African/Moorish culture that's at a roughly equal level of cultural progress as the Caucasian people of this setting, only with much, MUCH better maths, geometry, astronomy, and calligraphy.'

It's a significantly better reason than 'wizards', but people just never seem to accept it.

Maybe it's because it's not magic. Maybe they only accept things when there's some sort of Highly Improbable reason.

[Psychosplodge]

Moustaches should only occur as part of a beard. So idk what option to press:(

[YorkNecromancer]

This vote assumes a rogue moustache without the dignity of beard, sideburn, or stubble of any kind.

So if you believe they should go with a beard, I'm afraid there's only one option.

[Psychosplodge]

Indeed there is in that case.